PPP: Adding poems
by George J. Dance Adding a poem is something anyone can do to improve PPP, and it's easy. Below are what you'll need and the steps to follow. While the steps may look long and involved, that is only because I've tried to spell out everything: you may find that you can skip steps because you've already done them. (However, please read each step to make sure you haven't missed any.) What you'll need # The text of the poem (to type or paste in). # Information on the author (usually only his or her name) #Information on when the poem was written or published. Creating your poem's page Heading Click "Add a New Page" and write your page heading in the box that appears. The format should be Title / Author (the poem's title, a space, a slash, a second space, and the author's name), so for our sample the page would be called A Poem / A. Poet. Once you're in the text editor, go immediatedly to "Source" mode (by checking the Source tab on the upper right of the editing page). For proper formatting, one should always write a poem in Source". Template The first thing to add is a template. Use the following template; you can simply copy and paste this one (make sure you have both sets of curly brackets): "Title" and "author" are self-explanatory. "Section" applies only if you are adding a long poem by canto (or chapter); "previous and "next" only if you are adding a sonnet series or other series (such as a book); otherwise leave those blank. "Year" should be the year the poem was written; if it was published later, you can add that year in "notes". (If you do not know when the poem was written, use the year when it was published). "Notes" is for any other information you'd like to add about the poem (usually information about the book in which it was first published, or, barring that, the book where you got it from). When you're done, your template will look like this: Which will look like this on the page: Adding the poem Now it's time to add the poem itself. 1) Start a new section for your poem by typing in the poem's title. (Use a Title 3 heading, by adding 3 equal signs before and after your heading). 2) Leave a blank line or two, and type the word . Then leave at least one blank line before adding the poem text. 3) Type or copy in the text of your poem. At the bottom, you can add the poet's name, date and book information, but (as you've already given all that in the template) none of that is necessary. 4) At the end, leave one more blank line and type in . And you're done: your poem should look like this (if it doesn't, compare your codes to the ones used here): A Poem This is a poem. It is not a great poem Or even a good poem. All that it is Is just a poem. Adding other information You're almost done the page, but not quite: there are three other pieces of information you need, and one might already be done. 1) you need to make sure that your poem is properly alphabetized. PPP alphabetizes articles by first word of the heading, so that might already be done for you. However, if the first word of your article is "A" (as in our sample) or "The", then you need to add a Default Sort. Do that by typing or pasting in the following: . 2) You also need to add copyright information. If this poem is licensed under Creative Commons, then type in a single line giving the copyright holder and the license name. If the license name is the same as the Wikia default, then you don't even have to add that. Then add the template . If the poem is public domain, then add the template . 3) You also need to add categories, so that your poem is properly indexed. One category has already been added for you ("2000" works" in the example). Add more categories by clicking the box at the bottom of the page. Categories you need to add are: # Poems # century of poem - 20th-century poems '''in the example. # Nationality (of author) - '''Canadian poems in the example. Creating the author's page Notice that, in our sample, "A. Poet" is red-linked. That is because there is no author page. If your author's name is blue-linked, that has already been done; but if it is red-linked, then you will have to add an author page yourself. Do that by: 1) Click on the red link to start a new page called Author:Name (with no space on either side of the colon. In our sample, you would type in Author:A. Poet. 2) On that page, type in only #REDIRECT:Author's Name (making sure to add the double square brackets. For the sample poem, you would type in #REDIRECT:A. Poet. Then publish your page; it's done. The result should look like this: #REDIRECT:A. Poet 3) Because PPP has articles on over 3,000 poets, the above link should be blue. If it is red, then either: you misspelled the author's name; or the article title consists of more than the author's name (for example, John Davidson (poet)); or there is no such article: check by searching PPP. When you have a blue link, then click on it to go to that page. (If you cannot get a blue link, then skip the next three steps and go to step 7). 4) In the poet's article, navigate down to the See also section, and click "Edit". Remember to use Scource mode. .5) Above the See also section, start a new section called Poems by Name, using the same Title 2 heading. In that section, type in a star, and (in square brackets): (followed by)the name of the poem. In our sample poem, your screen would now look like this in source mode: Poems by A. Poet * A. Poem See also * List of Canadian poets 6) Finally, you may need to add categories to the author's article so that his page is properly indexed. Categories you need include: # Authors # century (in which the author wrote and published) - 20th-century authors in the example. If the author wrote and published in two different centuries, then add them both. # Nationality (in which the author wrote and published) - Canadian authors in the example. If the author wrote and published in two or more countries, then add both or all of them. You can check whether those categories are already there, or go ahead and add them anyway; PPP will not add the same categories twice. Now you're done. Continue with step 7) only if you did not find a blue link in step 3). 7) If you could not get a blue link (in step 3), then click on the red link (which will bring up a blank page with the poet's name as the header. On that page, do steps 5) and 6) anyway. If there is already a page by that poet, someone from PPP will come along and fix that for you. If there is not, then you may have to complete the rest of the poet's page yourself. To do that, first read the article on "Adding articles on poets," and then try it if you wish. And that's it! You've successfully added a poem. Is there another one you'd like to add?